dwd@sfsup.UUCP (D.W.Dougherty) (10/07/87)
I just opened the box to my Mac last Saturday and started playing
around with MacWrite. I noticed, much to my dismay, that there is
little support of mathematical symbols. I do an awful lot of writing
which involves some pretty heavy mathematics and I need that flexa-
bility. Can anybody recommend a package that supports just about
every mathematical symbol you could think of?? It may certainly
be PD.
Thank you.
David W. Dougherty
{...ihnp4...}!attunix!dwdgraifer@net1.ucsd.edu (Dan Graifer) (10/08/87)
In article <2164@sfsup.UUCP> dwd@sfsup.UUCP (D.W.Dougherty) writes: >I just opened the box to my Mac last Saturday and started playing >around with MacWrite. I noticed, much to my dismay, that there is >little support of mathematical symbols. I do an awful lot of writing >which involves some pretty heavy mathematics and I need that flexa- >bility. Can anybody recommend a package that supports just about >every mathematical symbol you could think of?? It may certainly >be PD. > >Thank you. > > David W. Dougherty > {...ihnp4...}!attunix!dwd There are three classes of solutions to this problem: 1. If you only need one symbol at any horizontal location on a line, just use the Symbol Font supplied with your Mac. Use the Keycaps DA (shrink your document window, and leave the DA open on the desktop) to find symbol/keyboard correspondence. 2. Use your favorite paint/draw program (the latter is better for editting) to create your equations, and copy/paste them to your wp document. This will get easier when MultiFinder is released. 3. There are several commercial packages that are essentially specialized draw programs for editting mathematical symbols. MS Word 3.0x has a limited similer capability built in. MacEqn Desk Accessory $44.95 Software Recognition Technologies 110 University Park Rochester NY 14620 (716)461-0923 MathType Desk Accessory or Application $149 Design Science, Inc. 6475-B E. Pacific Coast Highway Suite 392 Long Beach, CA 90803 (213)433-0685 MathWriter Application $49.95? Cooke Publications P.O. Box 4448 Ithaca, NY 14852 (800)482-4438 x 15 (NY 1-800-435-4438 x 15) or (607)272-2708 Expressionist ? $54.95 Allan Bonadio Associates 1579 Dolores St. San Francisco, CA 94110 You may be able to beat these prices. Try calling MacConnection (the most reputable of the mail-order houses) (800)622-5472 I have no connection with any of the above companies Good luck Dan Graifer graifer@net1.UCSD.EDU Disclaimer: Nobody ever listens to me anyways; Why should they start now?
khayo@sonia.cs.ucla.edu (Erazm J. Behr) (10/09/87)
In article <4051@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> graifer@net1.UUCP (Dan Graifer) writes: >In article <2164@sfsup.UUCP> dwd@sfsup.UUCP (D.W.Dougherty) writes: >>I just opened the box to my Mac last Saturday and started playing >>around with MacWrite. I noticed, much to my dismay, that there is >>little support of mathematical symbols. I do an awful lot of writing >>which involves some pretty heavy mathematics and I need that flexa- >>bility. Can anybody recommend a package that supports just about >>every mathematical symbol you could think of?? It may certainly >>be PD. >> >>Thank you. > >There are three classes of solutions to this problem: >1. If you only need one symbol at any horizontal location on a line, just >use the Symbol Font supplied with your Mac. Use the Keycaps DA (shrink your >document window, and leave the DA open on the desktop) to find symbol/keyboard >correspondence. > Symbol has been created by a math minor undergraduate after a few nights of heavy drinking. Why it would have only the right-to-left set inclusion is totally beyond me (maybe the undergraduate was studying Hebrew at the time ?) The font is simply useless - if you really want to write math. There is a (ImageWriter bitmap) font Math, which is better - but still limited by the number of option/shift/key combinations. Also, anything a little more complicated (but still very common in math) like setting up matrices, vertical alignment etc. is very difficult using any font/word processor duet that I know of. >2. Use your favorite paint/draw program (the latter is better for editting) >to create your equations, and copy/paste them to your wp document. This will >get easier when MultiFinder is released. > I used to do that but not anymore - see below. >3. There are several commercial packages that are essentially specialized >draw programs for editting mathematical symbols. MS Word 3.0x has a limited >similer capability built in. > > MacEqn > MathType > MathWriter > Expressionist I haven't tried any of these, but I've read about them. I don't mean to offend the authors, but the above programs seem to be total kludges after you learn TeX (a typesetting system developed by D. Knuth @ Stanford), which is no easy task - but: 1) even after a few hours you are able to produce a nice and complicated paper with all the symbols you can imagine 2) after a few days you begin to get a grip on the most difficult aspect, fine points of page layout and alignment (I'm talking millimeters here) 3) after a week or so you develop a set of macros that suit your particular needs and make it all a snap 4) after a month you'll want to learn PostScript and how to incorporate PS code in a TeX document 5) in the end you look at your old papers/exams/notes created with MacDraw and the like with complete disgust, asking yourself: why was I making a fool of myself by showing these doodles to anyone and pretending I had entered the Computer Age? Now the bad news: TeX packages for the Mac are rather expensive - unless you are entitled to some academic discount; the one I'm familiar with, TeXtures published by Addison-Wesley retails for about $500 (wow!) and I wouldn't be able to afford it - but my ID card at the UCLA bookstore takes $420 (wow!!!) off of it. Talk about fairness and justice. I know that many other places have made a deal like that with AW - maybe some companies have, too. Needless to say, I don't even know Dr. Knuth, and have no connection whatsoever with AW. I have no connections at all - period. Eric ----------------------------------------------------------- >>>>---------------> khayo@math.ucla.edu
gae@osupyr.UUCP (Gerald Edgar) (10/09/87)
My favorite fonts for Mathematical symbols (except when I use TeX) are
the "Maine fonts" [Machias, Lovell, Millinocket]. I believe they are
P.D.
--
Gerald A. Edgar TS1871@OHSTVMA.bitnet
Department of Mathematics edgar@osupyr.UUCP
The Ohio State University ...{akgua,gatech,ihnp4,ulysses}!cbosgd!osupyr!gae
Columbus, OH 43210 70715,1324 CompuServejkm@faron.UUCP (Jonathan K. Millen) (10/09/87)
In article <2164@sfsup.UUCP> dwd@sfsup.UUCP (D.W.Dougherty) writes: >bility. Can anybody recommend a package that supports just about >every mathematical symbol you could think of?? It may certainly > > {...ihnp4...}!attunix!dwd Find someone with a Laserwriter and get the (bitmap version of the) Symbol font. Incidentally, set inclusion is hard to find because it is on a two-key accented character, option-n A. Its negation is option-tilde A, and included-or-equal is option-n O. -Jon Millen
wmcb@ecsvax.UUCP (William C. Bauldry) (10/09/87)
Sorry, but no go - avoiding TeX was how I got my significant other to go along with purchasing a Mac in the first place - I vote for MathWriter.
pgn@usceast.UUCP (Paul Nevai) (10/10/87)
The obvious choice for professional quality is TeX. Otherwise, I use WORD 3.01 with it TeX lookalike symbol creating procedure. MacEquation and Mathwriter are dwarfs compared to Expressionist, if you insist on a DA-output which cannot be edited in your regular word processor. Summary: I TeX is too much for you then go with WORD 3.01. Question: What about FullWrite? Can it open up WORD 3.01 files? Can it do math. typesetting? P.S. The AMS Notices had a lots of extremely interesting articles on math. wordprocessing (see this past years issues). AMS ( is not Amer. Meteorological Soc.) stand for guess what.
wmcb@ecsvax.UUCP (William C. Bauldry) (10/12/87)
In article <263@osupyr.UUCP> gae@osupyr.UUCP (Gerald Edgar) writes: > >My favorite fonts for Mathematical symbols (except when I use TeX) are >the "Maine fonts" [Machias, Lovell, Millinocket]. I believe they are >P.D. > From where may they be obtained ? (I would prefer originals as opposed to downloading - at this time I still have to go through other formats to download.) bill
gae@osupyr.UUCP (Gerald Edgar) (10/14/87)
>>the "Maine fonts" [Machias, Lovell, Millinocket]. I believe they are >From where may they be obtained ? Send $8.00 to: Maine Fonts Dept. of Math. Box 1917 Brown Univ. Providence, R.I. 02912 -- Gerald A. Edgar TS1871@OHSTVMA.bitnet Department of Mathematics edgar@osupyr.UUCP The Ohio State University ...{akgua,gatech,ihnp4,ulysses}!cbosgd!osupyr!gae Columbus, OH 43210 70715,1324 CompuServe
udell@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU (Jon Udell) (10/23/87)
In article <264@faron.UUCP> jkm@faron.UUCP (Jonathan K. Millen) writes: >Find someone with a Laserwriter and get the (bitmap version of the) >Symbol font. Incidentally, set inclusion is hard to find because >it is on a two-key accented character, option-n A. Its negation >is option-tilde A, and included-or-equal is option-n O. Do these characters exist only in the bitmap version of the font? How can you tell if the bitmap version of a font is in the system? I've always assumed that the System file contained bitmap versions of all the fonts, and that the versions used by the laserwriter were stored in the laserwriter. I tried to use the characters described above in a Word 3.01 document, but they did not show up on the screen or on the laserwriter. What gives? Where are these characters (and any others that may exist) documented? Jon
gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) (10/23/87)
In article <2135@Shasta.STANFORD.EDU> udell@Shasta.UUCP (Jon Udell) writes: >In article <264@faron.UUCP> jkm@faron.UUCP (Jonathan K. Millen) writes: >>is option-tilde A, and included-or-equal is option-n O. > >I've always assumed that the System file contained bitmap versions of >all the fonts, and that the versions used by the laserwriter were stored in >the laserwriter. This is correct. QuickDraw only knows how to draw bitmap fonts. If a font shows up in your Font menu then you have a bitmap version of it in the System. >I tried to use the characters described above in a Word >3.01 document, but they did not show up on the screen or on the laserwriter. >What gives? > >Where are these characters (and any others that may exist) documented? > I haven't been able to find them on my SE, either. Does the SE have problems with the "overstrike" characters? By the way, I'd sure like to see an extension to KeyCaps that shows all the available "hidden" characters. It's sure a pain to try to remember all the key strokes that lead to hidden characters and then try them all to see if the character you're looking for is hidden. Robert Gardner
jkm@faron.UUCP (Jonathan K. Millen) (10/26/87)
------- Set inclusion in the Symbol font appears under two-key accented versions of the CAPITAL letters A and O. That is, included-in is option-n cap-A not-included-in is option-tilde cap-A included-or-equal is option-n cap-O. Sorry for not being clear about this before. -Jon Millen
gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) (10/27/87)
In article <271@faron.UUCP> jkm@faron.UUCP (Jonathan K. Millen) writes: >------- >Set inclusion in the Symbol font appears under two-key accented >versions of the CAPITAL letters A and O. That is, > included-in is option-n cap-A > included-or-equal is option-n cap-O. These two do not seem to work on my SE (System 4.1) Is this a known bug? > not-included-in is option-tilde cap-A This one works fine. Robert Gardner
tecot@apple.UUCP (11/02/87)
In article <6995@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >In article <271@faron.UUCP> jkm@faron.UUCP (Jonathan K. Millen) writes: >>------- >>Set inclusion in the Symbol font appears under two-key accented >>versions of the CAPITAL letters A and O. That is, >> included-in is option-n cap-A >> included-or-equal is option-n cap-O. > > These two do not seem to work on my SE (System 4.1) Is this a known bug? Yes. This is a bug in the US versions of Systems 4.0 and 4.1. It has nothing to do with the symbol font, but instead an oversight in the creation of the KCHR table. It has been fixed in System 4.2 _emt